


Traps and Sticks

by TwigStarPikachuTroll22



Category: Trolls (2016)
Genre: Developing Friendships, Fluff, Pre-Movie, kind of an AU considering my OC is not in canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-13 01:02:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19240669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwigStarPikachuTroll22/pseuds/TwigStarPikachuTroll22
Summary: Boinga! This is my first written down and finished fanfic. Just how I imagine Twig (my OC) and Branch first meeting. Part of it near the end is a conversation I had with a certain ask blog on Tumblr RP-ing as Branch (@crazypreparedd) because it just made sense somehow. Oh, and I threw in a bit of a Broppy mention just for the heck of it though Poppy's not in this scene. Hope you like it! :-)





	Traps and Sticks

**Author's Note:**

> Boinga! This is my first written down and finished fanfic. Just how I imagine Twig (my OC) and Branch first meeting. Part of it near the end is a conversation I had with a certain ask blog on Tumblr RP-ing as Branch (@crazypreparedd) because it just made sense somehow. Oh, and I threw in a bit of a Broppy mention just for the heck of it though Poppy's not in this scene. Hope you like it! :-)

Branch was heading back to his bunker with a bundle of sticks he’d collected. He had enough to make some things and couldn’t hold many more. He set them on the ground and reached to open the trapdoor.

That was when he heard springing sounds, snapping noises….and shouts of _“Woohoo!!”_ and _“Whooaa!”_ and _“Whup–!”_ and _“YEah!”_

Branch tensed as he looked around, twitching his ears. He couldn’t see the source of these sounds, but it seemed to be moving. A bunch of his traps had been activated–but there was nothing in them. He squinted and scanned the area, confused…

Just then, a young Troll child leaped from the bushes with a loud _“Whoop!!”_ just as another trap was set off. She ran and jumped and swung and rolled and leaped off of things. She didn’t stop for a second, dodging more traps as she went, each one activated as it narrowly missed her.

“Hey!” Branch snapped. “Stay away from those!”

“Oh! Sorry!” The child swiftly climbed up onto the rock by his bunker and then sat quite still on top of it.

Branch set the sticks down and got started resetting one of the traps the young Troll had just triggered. Looking around, she’d triggered almost all of them. Great. Just great. “These traps are for catching dangerous predators. They’re NOT meant to serve as a playground for kids.” He glared at her.

“Sorry,” the kid said. “They just make such a great obstacle course! This is one of the best places to parkour!”

Branch stared for a second, puzzled. _That_ was a new one. He’d heard a lot of unexpected optimistic statements from other Trolls, especially Poppy…and Poppy dropped by his bunker a _lot_ to invite him to her parties and all…but no one had ever said his traps made for a great place to _parkour._ How many Trolls even did parkour?

Weird…

He continued working to reset the trap.

For some reason, the young Troll stayed right where she was and kept watching him. That was puzzling too. Why didn’t she just leave?

“Trolls don’t usually take an interest in my traps,” he found himself saying. “Mostly they just tell me to stop being paranoid and setting so many.”

He wasn’t just paranoid. There were a lot of dangerous predators out there. It only made sense to have some means of protecting himself. Other Trolls wouldn’t be calling him crazy once they were eaten.

The kid slid off the rock and watched him finish setting the trap back up. “You _are_ a _little_ too paranoid,” she said, a bit slowly, as if she was trying to be careful not to offend him. “But I think your traps and survival stuff are pretty cool.”

_Cool?_

No one had ever said _that_ to him before…

He studied this odd little Troll for a moment as he started on a second trap. She had yellow skin, and bright purple hair that was on the shorter side and had floppy bangs. She wore light green overall shorts, with orange straps and pink pockets. She had a pink ribbon around her head like a ninja headband. She also had dozens of freckles on her cheeks that seemed more gray than glittery, and an equally gray stripe winding around one arm. She was perhaps a head taller than Smidge. Ten or eleven years old, maybe. She kept watching him, rocking and bouncing in place a little bit.

She looked off sideways and caught sight of a target he’d scratched on a nearby tree. “Hey, what’s the target for?” She asked, pointing.

“To practice my aim with a bow and arrow;” Branch answered. “I have to be ready on defense in case of an attack.”

_“Awesome.”_

Branch gave another quizzical glance. _Awesome?_ Who was this kid?

The young Troll cocked her head to one side, squinting at the target. She stepped back a few paces. Then–unexpectedly–she pulled a slingshot from her hair and a small rock from her pocket, took aim, and fired. The rock hit the target dead center.

“Yeah! Bull’s eye!” she cheered loudly, jumping in the air and grinning ear to ear.

 _“Shhh!!”_ Branch shushed. Why did other Trolls have to shout so loudly all the time? Couldn’t they understand it would just lead predators right to them?

“Oh.” the young Troll said, now closer to normal volume. “Sorry, but when I gotta shout, I gotta shout!”

Branch sighed. “That’s one of the many problems with every Troll in the village. You’re all so _loud._ Someday, the Bergens _are_ going to hear all the loud music and singing, and then we’re all going to be eaten.”

The young Troll didn’t argue. She also didn’t say anything in agreement. She just went oddly quiet. She sat down on a log that was near her and swung her legs.

Branch continued with the traps. He was on the sixth one now. How many of his traps had this kid set off?

“That was a good shot, though…” he let slip.

The young Troll beamed at him, flashing a gap in her oversized front teeth. “Thanks! For awhile any Troll who saw me practicing with my slingshot just looked all confused, like they didn’t get why I’d have so much fun doing it. Honestly, I don’t really know why I like it either. I just kind of _do,_ y’know? But then this one time at a super fun party I shot a flying glitter ball and it burst everywhere like a firework, and now they ask me to do that all the time!”

Branch snorted. This little Troll was good with a slingshot and she used it as a party trick. Go figure.

She walked over, plopped down on the ground near him, and started launching question after question. “What’s your favorite color? What’s your favorite food? What do you do all day down in your bunker? Do you ever get lonely? Do you ever talk to yourself? Do you have a stuffed animal? Do you like playing chess? How come you’re so gray, and–”

“ _That’s_ classified information,” Branch interrupted sharply, scowling at her. He quickly turned his head away, focusing on the ninth trap he was now working at. He tried with all his might to stop his mind from replaying the memory of… _that_ day. If he spent even a second reliving the loss, the pain and the guilt, he might start to cry… _No freakin' way_ was he letting _that_ happen...

“Oh. Okay. Sorry.” the kid said, without hesitation. Then she shut her mouth. He had to admit he was relieved. Not every Troll actually respected his privacy.

For a few seconds there was silence.

“Why do _you_ have a gray stripe on your arm?” he found himself asking.

The young Troll sat up gripping her striped arm self-consciously. “Oh. Um. I don’t really know. It’s been there as long as I can remember.” She fidgeted a bit. Her eyes darted all around. She seemed uncomfortable.

It wasn’t long before she changed the subject. “Poppy and the Snack Pack talk about you sometimes. Mostly they just mention you being paranoid and a big party pooper and stuff.”

Branch didn’t respond. Of course that was what they would say. They weren’t exactly wrong…

“I mean, you _are_ paranoid and you _are_ kind of a downer sometimes, but other than that you don’t seem half bad, and you know a lot of cool stuff that nobody else does. I tried telling them that, but they just kind of stared at me all funny for a second…”

He really didn’t know what to say to that.

“Except for Poppy.”

Branch blinked. For some reason his heart skipped a beat.

“She likes you too, I think. I mean, she does get kinda frustrated with you being cynical all the time, but she works real hard to make special party invitations for you, and if any of her friends say anything bad about you, she’s the first one to argue. She always says that you _can_ be nice and you _can_ be happy and we all should just give you a chance.”

Branch swallowed. _Poppy was the only one telling other Trolls to give him a chance…_ His cheeks felt hot. Why was his heart pounding so hard, and doing those funny little flips? Oh god, not this again… He grimaced, trying to snap himself out of it… He opened his mouth to say Poppy was wrong…He was never going to be like the other Trolls again, that was just a fact…Poppy was wasting her time and energy on him…

Before he could speak, the kid piped up again. “Say, I was just wondering, have you ever thought about putting Legos on the ground? Stepping on those things REEEALLY hurts.”

Branch tried to suppress an unexpected chuckle that erupted from him. And failed.

The young Troll blinked in surprise. Her eyes grew wide and her mouth dropped open.

 _Ugh, get ahold of yourself, Branch…!_ He quickly composed himself. It wasn’t often that anyone gave him suggestions like that. “All right, points ‘cause that actually made me laugh. But nah, I don’t know that it’d actually be a good idea in anything but theory - Legos are really brightly colored, they’d stand out in the forest. Unless a blind predator happened to be snuffling around, I don’t know that it’d do much good. Likely just give away the position of the village, all in all. But yeah, those things do really hurt.”

“Ahh…” she murmured, nodding thoughtfully. “There are transparent Legos, though, so maybe not completely out of the question…”

_Wait, there are transparent Legos now? Huh. Learn something new every day, I guess._

“Either way, it is good to know I made you laugh! That’s one for the scrapbooks!” She grinned. She was suddenly reminding him a little of Poppy.

Branch finished resetting trap number twenty. There didn’t seem to be any more that needed fixing. So he went and picked up his bundle of sticks again. “Do me a favor, though, and don’t tell the others. They’d _never_ let me hear the end of it.”

She nodded. “Aye, aye, Captain Grumpy Pants!” she said, giving a salute. Then she mimed sealing her lips shut and throwing away the key. Branch smirked.

“Oh. I haven’t even introduced myself. I’m Twig!” she grinned and stuck out a hand to shake.

There was a moment’s pause. Then, relunctantly, he shook it.

He opened the trapdoor to his bunker. “Well, Twig…seeya around.”

“Okay. Bye, Branch!” Twig smiled cheerfully and waved goodbye, then skipped away singing. _“It’s been fun but now I’ve got to go…life is way too short to take it slow…”_

Branch watched for a moment before lowering himself into his bunker and shutting the trapdoor.

She was a strange one, that kid…

But he made a note to himself to give some thought to the transparent Legos idea.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!! :-)  
> Oh, and the song she's singing at the end is part of When Can I See You Again, by Owl City.


End file.
